'More Woes of a Single Dad'

You've heard of dry humor? I do dryer humor. I go through dryers faster than I go through women. Yes, dryers...clothes dryers. I am on my third one this year. I know this is not a typical topic for a single man, but I'm not the typical single man. I am a single parent to a teen aged girl. Some of you are nodding in understanding now. One cannot go through a single day without a dryer with a teen aged girl in the house. Unfortunately, I suffered through three days of NDS...'no dryer' syndrome. It wasn't easy. I probably need counseling.I had a dryer...bought it twenty years ago along with a matching washer. The last three years of its life was touch and go. At the end, it was on life support. Finally out of pity, I pulled the plug. Wasn't really pity per se, it died with a good forty pounds of wet clothes inside it. Before you marvel at the fact that a dryer lasted twenty years, let me explain. It wasn't actually used for twenty years...it left for about ten years. With my ex-wife. It wasn't too long after the ex and the dryer and our child left that the trio stumbled across a fella who had a dryer of his own and that dryer went into storage. I happened to meet a woman who had a dryer as well, so it all worked out...for about seven years. As much as I liked her dryer, I found the woman herself impossible to live with, and as luck would have it when I kicked her to the curb, the dryer went with her.Finding myself dryer-less and womanless, I called the ex who had left with my first dryer and questioned her about it. Yes, she said, it was in storage. Do I need it, she politely and thoughtfully asked. I replied that I was in desperate need of a dryer, and by the way, that evil woman took the washer as well. As luck would have it, both were in storage just waiting for some needy man like myself to come along. And then she moved in for the kill."I'll sell both of them to you for three hundred dollars."I grew quiet as I lowered the phone from my ear and flipped it off. I could distinctly remember standing in the appliance aisle down at the Sears and Roebuck, writing out a check for over five hundred bucks for the pair some years earlier...and now I was expected to buy them all over again for three hundred bucks! But I needed a washer and dryer.The old dryer ran like a Lincoln up until the weekend before school started this year, and really could it have picked a worse time? As my daughter headed out the door to spend the weekend with her mom, I stopped her."Hey, do you know if your mom has another dryer?"With a sly smile, she responded, "I'll see what I can do."Before the sun set that evening I was the proud owner of another used but free dryer. I must admit it took the edge off of my paying for the other one twice. Now, how my ex keeps coming up with all these dryers is a story in itself, and it's really none of my business...or yours. I'll just say this...if a man wants to work his way into a woman's heart, or wherever he was trying to get to...I suggest a bottle of wine and some roses, not an old beat up used dryer. But hey, it got me through a whole three months and I didn't have to buy any wine or flowers.And so this evening I again stood in the aisle of the Sears and Roebuck, staring at dryers. "I like this Kenmore." I pointed to a dryer that looked just like all the rest."Sure, I can order one for you and it will be here Monday." the pony-tailed, goatee-sporting salesman responded.'Naw, you don't understand. I need it tonight.""But this dryer is just for show. I can't sell this one to you.""You don't understand. I have a teenaged daughter at home.""Oh..." He stroked his beard as he thought for a minute, "Well, back your pickup up to the door and we'll load this baby up!"Hey, what's that? The buzzer! My clothes are dry...I'm so excited!

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Rodney Strange

author, entrepreneur, part-time farmer/rancher/cowboy, and West Texas' most eligible bachelor. Author of the 'Adventures of the Rusty Goat,' 'Nineteen Seventy Something' and his newest novel 'The Chimera Parables,'